Leaving Epcot by bus...Sat. June 10

[mantysk8coach]

Cross-posted here and on transportation board...not sure where this belonged, and where more "in the know" people might see it:

I have meant to post about this since I got home from WDW on June 16, and just thought of this again now.

Was anyone here leaving Epcot via Disney bus on the evening of Saturday, June 10? It was the weirdest thing. We were tired and hot and planned Illuminations for another night, so we left to return to Pop Century, if I remember correctly, it was probably about 7 p.m. Yes...it was 7 or 7:30 ish because it was right after our dinner at LeCellier.

So we go to our bus stop, and all of these totally unmarked, coach style busses were pulling up to all of the resort bus stops (not just Pop's). The busses were just totally white mostly, no writing on them at all. Some of them actually looked kind of beat up. Also, there were several actual Disney busses just sitting in that open area of Epcots lot near where the busses pick up, doing nothing.

So the plain bus pulls up, and people just start blindly piling on to it. Red flags were going off in my head all over the place. However, I am totally NOT one to provoke confrontation, so I said nothing. I was about to step on to the bus, and THANK GOD the lady behind me asked the driver to see some ID. I immediately stepped off the bus and could have kissed her feet for being the one to ask.

Now I figured there had to be a reasonable explanation, and was 95% sure that these buses were probably legit, but the driver was NOT able to produce ID showing that he was able be driving for Disney. All he said was "We are contracted by Disney." But he would not elaborate anymore than that.

So we decided not to get on the bus. Neither did the lady who asked him for the ID, and several other people in line.

In this age of suicide bombings, and terrorism, etc., you just can't be too careful. I mean, you just never know where this bus may have taken us. So we got on the Monorail to Magic Kingdom and got on the Pop bus from there without a problem.

So is this a normal thing? I have just never seen that happen before. Like I said, I'm sure it was probably legit, but especially with my 2 year old along, you can't be too careful.

Can anyone shed any light on this! Sorry this got so long, but this has been bugging me since we got home.

 

[HollisterSweetie]

Ahhh alas, someone posted the question i'd been pondering our whole vacation . I thought perhaps the bus drivers were on strike....I have no idea why then brought them in?!?! Hopefully someone else can answer our question ! I was very skeptical of getting on at first, they were nice, but definately wasn't "Disney" to us. The bus driver had on rap for us to listen to . I didn't only encounter this at EPCOT that night, but at Animal Kingdom for an EMH night as well.

 

[eeyoreiscool]

During peak times Disney will have local buses come in and help get the crowds back to their rooms or to the resorts. We have had this happen to us a couple of times within the past year. There wasn't anything wrong with it but sometimes the drivers don't know all the short routes everywhere. I'm not sure about how they figure out if they need them or not though.

 

[smep013]

We took this kind of bus when we stayed at the Grovesnor.

 

[peter11435]

Its a common practice when they are very busy. Unmarked (and some marked) charter buses will be brought in to assist. WDW has nearly 300 busses and over 1000 drivers but sometimes that is just not enough.

 

[MulanMom]

We saw a lot of these buses at MGM/Studios. Doesn't help guests who have ECVs or wheelchairs as they do not have any way to accommodate them.